The great fashion designer Ralph Lauren once said, “I don’t design clothes. I design dreams.”

This is an ideology that Golf Le Fleur, an up-and-coming luxury brand, is striving to perfect.

Golf Le Fleur is a clothing brand created by musician Tyler, The Creator, which infuses the dreams of traveling the world into their clothing collections through European styles, color palettes, and high-quality garments.

In an interview discussing the ethos of his brand with Women’s Wear Daily, Tyler stated “I want people to live in these clothes. Scratch it up, get a hole in it. Live in these pieces”.

This quote describes the emotional intent that Tyler builds his brand on. Golf Le Fleur prides itself on providing high-quality garments infused with the dreams of globe-trotting, experiencing new things, and getting out of your comfort zone.

However, this brand was not built overnight.

Golf Le Fleur is a product of Tyler, The Creator’s personal and professional maturation, as well as a multitude of collaborations and hard work. As someone who witnessed Tyler’s growth and entrance into fashion firsthand as an avid supporter, I will try to give an accurate account of the inception of Golf Le Fleur.

The History of Tyler, The Creator

We cannot discuss the brand of Golf Le Fleur, without discussing the history of Tyler, The Creator, and his career.

Tyler burst onto the mainstream scene in 2010, with a rebellious personality and controversial aura. His early works often depicted strong imagery through his lyrics, and made an impact on the masses with his antics through mediums like music videos. For example, in his video for the song Yonkers, Tyler ate a live cockroach. He hung around his crew of skaters and constantly caused trouble on Fairfax Avenue in California. Tyler embodied a punk and skate energy for people of color. These polarizing antics and his politically incorrect energy led Tyler to create a unique and cult-like fan base that supported his every move.

During this time, Tyler also developed his own style and fashion which is still ever-growing. Alongside his successful music career during his rebellious era, Tyler created a streetwear brand named Golf Wang. Tyler was only around 18 years old at the inception of this brand, while also having full creative control over the collections. The clothing collections were defined by bright clothing, with lots of graphic tees and styles that coincided with skate culture. Golf Wang became the uniform for Tyler, The Creator, and his fanbase, giving the brand popularity right from the start. In public appearances and award shows, Tyler would also wear his Golf Wang clothing alongside very established streetwear brands like Supreme and Bathing Ape.

By doing this, Tyler inadvertently gave Golf Wang the same status that Supreme garnered in the streetwear industry.

By this point, Tyler found himself as a rising star in both music and fashion. Golf Wang soon partnered with the company Vans, a collaboration that fits perfectly with the brand’s upbringing in Los Angeles’s skate culture. The collaboration was with The Era model of Vans shoe silhouette. The Golf Wang interpretation of this shoe featured very bright color schemes with lots of patterns. These shoes were paired with looks from the Golf Wang clothing line, setting trends in the skate and streetwear scene. The Golf Wang and Vans collaboration soon came to an end over creative differences, as the Vans executives were limiting Tyler’s vision for Golf Wang.

Since that moment, Tyler has matured in front of our eyes musically and personally. Tyler went from his signature lyrics and cockroach-eating visuals in his early works like Bastard and Goblin, but then grew into more lush and polished music which detailed his personal maturity, including his experience of defining his own identity. He has also perfected the craft of immersing the consumer into his universe, with each album having its own unique aesthetic and portrayed lifestyle. This maturity can be seen in his more recent albums, Flower Boy and Igor.

The Creation of Golf Le Fleur

In 2017, Tyler dropped his album Flower Boy, his most mature project to date. This project touched on mature and sensitive topics like Tyler’s sexuality as well as his personal problems with dealing with fame and his insecurities. Alongside this album, we saw the first inception of his brand, Golf Le Fleur. This brand was still related to the previously mentioned Golf Wang, but aimed to tailor to a more high quality and polished aesthetic.

Golf Le Fleur started by creating a collaboration with Converse, a relationship that is still blooming till this day. Converse gave Tyler the freedom to pursue any creative endeavors he wanted, whether it be footwear or clothing. This collaboration first began with Tyler’s take on classic Converse shoe silhouettes, the low-top Converse One Star and the Chuck 70.

Tyler’s interpretations featured very original takes on the shoe, featuring unique pastel color palettes and textures. This collaboration then led Golf Le Fleur to have its own Converse shoe, the Gianno. This shoe was an original design by Tyler which took inspiration from his love for Chanel bags. Alongside the shoe collaborations, Golf Le Fleur also created apparel under Converse.

With the success of the Converse collaboration, Golf Le Fleur created another partnership with Lacoste for a clothing line. This collection meshed Tyler’s unique style and personality with classic French tennis wear, leading Golf Le Fleur to begin its incline into high fashion. This collection featured many timeless looks such as cardigans, polos, and pants which featured Tyler’s signature pastel color palette. This collaboration started to set the brand apart from its predecessor, Golf Wang.

Although Golf Wang was very successful, the Lacoste and Golf Le Fleur collaboration allowed the brand to be taken seriously, as it gained respect in the international fashion world. The brand has since only increased its high fashion aesthetic with new collections featuring timeless looks.

The Current State of Golf Le Fleur

After very successful collaborations with Converse and Lacoste, Tyler and Golf Le Fleur set their sights on creating their first solo collection of clothing. In 2021, Golf Le Fleur debuted their first collection featuring a posh, unisex array of clothing, showcasing Tyler’s first entry into high fashion. This collection is a deviation from Tyler’s previous collections of skate punk streetwear as well as his more sophisticated Converse/Golf Le Fleur collaborations.

Set under Tyler’s signature pastel color palette, this collection boasted high fashion looks such as mohair cardigans, leather jackets, silk tops, trousers, knit polos and other garments. These high fashion looks not only look fancy, but also have the high quality and attention to detail that haute couture often provides.

This led to the collection to having a much higher price point than previous collections, due to high production and sourcing costs. Some garments from this collection had their materials sourced from Europe, as well as being handcrafted in Italy.

Another interesting aspect of this collection can be attributed to the color palette. Although Tyler has now become known for signature pastel color choices, there is more intent behind it than it just looking pretty. In an interview with Fast Company, Tyler outlined his design choices by stating that he wanted his entire collection to be able to match with the color brown. Not just brown as a textile or pattern, but brown skin.

Tyler purposefully crafted this collection to match beautifully with darker skin tones for people of color. In the world of high fashion, minorities and people of color are often not the focus groups for clothing collections. By doing this, Tyler is catering to a new generation of minorities who want to get into high fashion that represents them and their heritage.

By carefully infusing high fashion looks with his own personal style choices, Tyler has created a unique allure to Golf Le Fleur. All of the clothing from this collection seems like it came straight from Tyler’s own closet, as he had full creative control and designed the entire collection, with the help of some professionals in the fashion industry.

Venturing into Accessories and the Beauty Industry

With the solo clothing collection, Golf Le Fleur also released their first accessories and a venture into the beauty industry. The accessories included were things that travelers would need, such as sunglasses, hanker-chiefs, and the most impressive, briefcases.

The Golf Le Fleur briefcase was created in collaboration with The Globetrotter, a British luxury brand. Founded in 1897, Globetrotter is known to create handcrafted luggage pieces of very high quality. This suitcase featured the brand’s iconic and simple design, but with a few of Tyler’s unique style choices.

The Golf Le Fleur and Globetrotter suitcase also featured multi-pastel colored straps, as well as Golf Le Fleur’s signature flower logo. This suitcase marked the brand’s first collaboration with a high-luxury brand. Although Tyler admitted that the suitcase made no business sense and led to very little profit, it was an important step in setting the luxury standard of Golf Le Fleur.

With the high-quality accessories, this collection also marked the brand’s first venture into the beauty industry with fragrances and nail polish. Golf’s fragrance is named French Waltz, which is described as a rose-musk made for everyone. Although the fragrance smells wonderful, Tyler’s pursuit into perfume was more for the idea of the smell, rather than the actual scent. He describes the scent to encapsulate the sweet moments in life, like cliff jumping for the first time or eating a wonderful meal after going swimming for hours. Tyler’s comments on this perfume give it more emotional value than most other fragrances. He wants the scent to inspire you to live your life to the fullest and experience new things.

Alongside French Waltz, Golf Le Fleur also released a 3-piece, unisex nail polish set. The colors of the polish matched the pastel color palettes of the entire clothing collection, giving the collection a more cohesive feel. The polishes themselves were also given interesting names, such as Geneva Blue and Georgia Peach. These names also increased the immersive feeling of the brand.

Due to the expensive nature of the clothing garments in this collection, these accessories, and beauty products made by Golf Le Fleur serve as masstige products for the company, allowing people who cannot afford the luxury clothing line to still feel a part of the brand in some aspect. This is a strategy similar to many haute couture brands, like Gucci, Prada, Chanel, etc., who sell these low-cost, but still overpriced accessories to the market that cannot afford their more expensive garments.

The Golf Le Fleur Dream

Alongside a beautiful, high fashion collection, Golf Le Fleur has done a masterful job of giving the clothes emotional value. Through strategic marketing and Tyler’s personality and willingness to promote the brand, Golf Le Fleur has become more than just clothes. It has become a lifestyle. Much like his music, Tyler has worked to make his clothing a part of a very immersive universe that the consumer feels enthralled in.

First and foremost, Golf Le Fleur is sold as a dream directly through Tyler’s own music. He routinely name-drops his clothing line in his music. This then leads fans of his music to associate Golf Le Fleur with high fashion. Tyler’s clothing line also appears on a majority of his album covers as well. For example, on the cover of his latest album, Call Me If You Get Lost, Tyler is dressed in the Golf Le Fleur collection. By infusing his fashion collection into his music, Golf Le Fleur clothing become pieces of pop and hip-hop culture history.

Tyler and the Golf Le Fleur team also do a great job of marketing the clothing collection and its accessories through social media, advertising, and their website. Tyler can constantly be seen wearing Golf Le Fleur at all major public events, like award shows, movie premieres, etc. He also posts the clothing collection on his social media. Tyler is always traveling the globe, and whenever he posts a picture in a beautiful location like Capri, Geneva, Amsterdam, etc. he is always wearing Golf Le Fleur and is even carrying the Golf Le Fleur suitcase. This form of marketing helps portray the brand as a lifestyle.

So once you end up buying Golf Le Fleur clothing, you feel like you are Tyler himself and are inspired to go traveling.

Golf Le Fleur advertisements are also very well made, often having a cinematic feel. The clothing is never at the forefront of the ad, but rather the experience they are portraying. These ads are often directed by Tyler himself and feature music produced by him in the background. The plot of the ads often has to do with travel. For example, the advertisement for French Waltz, the fragrance, features a couple sitting by a beautiful cliff engaged in deep conversation. Then they are seen running around and eventually cliff-jumping into a lake. The fragrance isn’t shown until the very end of the advertisement. By making advertisements that outline an experience rather than the product itself, the consumer is sold a dream and lifestyle to chase.

Concluding Remarks

Golf Le Fleur is an upcoming brand looking to create its own niche in the high fashion industry, but it comes from humble beginnings in the hip-hop and skate scene of Los Angeles. Under the helm of the founder, Tyler, The Creator, Golf Le Fleur will remain genuine and appeal to the emotional value of its supporters. The brand will continue to be itself and represent people of color, a demographic that often gets overlooked in the high fashion industry. With a unique brand identity and ties to pop culture, Golf Le Fleur has the opportunity to flourish into greater successes.